Did anyone vote / not vote in the 2011 alternative vote referendum and now wish they’d voted differently?

Now that you look at the make up of the Conservative and Labour front benches, with almost no chance for a third nationwide party, do you think that first past the post is serving the country well?

Be careful what you wish for. Fpp may not be great but there are flaws in the proportional representation system. Due to another thread I looked into the Israeli government and the Knesset (the nearest equivalent to our House of Commons) which is elected by PR. No party has ever had a majority and the balance of power and the ability to bring down government has been in the hands of small fringe parties, one of the reasons why religious zealots or other extremists can sway policy. The nearest comparison we’ve got at the moment is the DUP. In the FPP scenario and the PR system both are vulnerable when there is no overall majority but that is going to happen more in the PR system.

It’s also meant, according to the news, that the UKs economic growth has been behind the Eurozone’s in 5 of the past 7 qurters since the vote.

Which may well have happened anyway. Perhaps Blair’s era of everyone must have degree, regardless of what it is etc.. is impacting the economy more and more; less manufacturing, innovation etc.. Services are fine, but running call centres that try to compete with India or Eastern Europe on cost isn’t going to put much money in the treasury long term.

The question was easy to understand but totally flawed because there was no official position on what leaving the EU would mean.

It is like a bunch of drunk people who have just come out the pub voting to get a taxi without first deciding where they want to go. A year later there is no agreement about what to tell the driver or willingness to get back out the cab.

I understood the question. It was ‘I’m an arrogant and feckless Prime Minister who would gamble the physical and economic safety of future generations in the hope it will further my political career. However the gamble’s on you because I’m rich so will be fine regardless. Does anyone trust me?’

And I understand the answer. An advisory referendum. Major constitutional change is not decided on a simple one-vote-can-swing-it majority. Brexit won, just. I believe this was no basis to trigger Article 50 in exactly the same way that a narrow loss would not have meant business as usual. As it seems we’re going through with this farce (at least for a few years before we rejoin) Brexit just winning means Brexit just. Stay in the single market but let them have their blue passports.

Yes, I understood the question. The problem was it was the wrong question put to people who did not understand enough of the issues to make an informed decision.

It would be a bit like a brain surgeon asking me if he should perform a certain procedure on a patient. I don’t know anything about brain surgery so how can I say, “Yes” or “No”.

It can be argued that this is little different to voting in a General Election – perhaps most people do not understand the issues at election time. The difference is that if you feel the country is going in the wrong direction, there is a chance to change things every five years. No such chance after leaving the EU. I reckon it will be a generation or more before there might be a chance of re-joining.

Since the vote for Brexit a lot has come out that was not mentioned during the campaign and some of the statements/views of the Leave campaign have fallen by the wayside –

The Remain campaign was sh*t but the main problem was that the government organised a referendum on a proposal which they were not in favour of. That meant the government did not need to take ownership of what happened in the event of ‘yes’ and argue for one particular variant.

This gave an opportunity for Leave to make different and inconsistent promises to different demographics to the extent of employing companies like Cambridge Analytica to psychologically profile voters based on Facebook data and create customised lies designed to appeal to their prejudices.

How could that possibly work? The eu will offer the worst deal imaginable, knowing that if rejected the UK remains in the eu and it won’t need to cut its budget like it is proposing for the next term of financial planning.